March 4, 2018
THE FLATS — Georgia Tech baseball matched the UIC Flames with 13 hits, however, the visitors in red outscored the White and Gold 12-5 to spoil the Jackets three-game weekend series sweep at Russ Chandler Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
The loss snaps Tech’s winning streak at seven-straight games and puts the Jackets at 8-3 overall on the season. UIC improves to 7-4 overall with the road win.
The Jacket pitching staff, which had only four walks over the first two games of the series versus UIC, walked six batters and hit two more, while the Tech defense had two key mishaps that helped the Flames pull away with the 12-5 win.
The loss fell to redshirt sophomore Jonathan Hughes (0-1), who gave up three unearned runs on three hits and two walks over 1.2 innings of work out of the bullpen, as the home team used six pitchers for the nine-inning contest.
UIC’s Jacob Key (1-1) picked up the win, as the right-hander gave up four runs on eight hits and three walks, while striking out six over 5.0 innings on the mound.
Junior catcher Joey Bart (3-for-4, HR, BB) paced the Jackets at the plate on Sunday hitting his fourth home run of the season, while shortstop Austin Wilhite (1-for-3, 2 RBIs) drove in two RBIs in the loss.
Freshmen Luke Waddell (2-for-4, 2B, run) and Baron Radcliff (1-for-3, HR, BB) each had an extra base hit on the day, while Chase Murray (2-for-3, RBI, BB) had an RBI on a sacrifice fly.
For UIC at the plate, infielders Thomas Norton (2-for-3, BB, 3 RBIs, run) and David Becker (3-for-6, 3 RBIs) led the Flames going 5-for-9 with two walks, six RBIs and a run scored at the top of the order.
Georgia Tech got on the scoreboard first in the bottom of the second, as Austin Wilhite hit a two-run single through the left side to put the home team on top 2-0 after two innings played.
UIC tied the game up at 2-2 in the top of the third on a Ryan Lin-Peistrup sacrifice fly and a Becker RBI single, and then took the lead in the top of the fourth with the help of a Georgia Tech throwing error and an RBI single to put the score at 5-2 in favor of the visitors.
Tech battled back to erase the two unearned runs given up in the third with two runs of their own in the bottom of the fifth by way of a Murray sacrifice fly and a Bart solo home run to cut the UIC lead to one at 5-3 through five complete innings.
UIC broke the game open with a bases-loaded walk in the eighth and a six-run ninth on three hits, two hit batsmen, a walk and a Tech fielding error to take a 12-4 lead into the bottom of the ninth.
In the ninth, Radcliff ripped his first career home run as a Jacket over the right field fence to put the final score at 12-5.
The Flames turned four double plays in the win, including none bigger than a diving catch in right field in the ninth that doubled up the Jacket runner on first base for the first two outs in the inning.
The Yellow Jackets (8-3) will open up a five-game road trip at Georgia State on Wednesday, March 7, at 5 p.m.
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Co-captain Joey Bart was 3-for-4 with a home run on Sunday, as Tech’s winning streak was snapped at seven games with the loss to UIC. pic.twitter.com/DQ4gCksCJT
— GeorgiaTech Baseball (@GTBaseball) March 4, 2018
